Walk around, shoot zombies?... I wouldn't know to be honest, trying to thing of examples. I hate the Resident Evil series, I think it's crap and oddly enough, never owned any of them, changing it's style of gameplay will not make me buy it. How changing FFs style of gameplay is making others consider buying the next FF doesn't make sense to me.

Understandable, but then what is it that makes people care about FF XV when it seems so similar to them? It's not even the first Final Fantasy that will be available for new gen consoles...

But it's still 3rd person, shooting zombies right? Hasn't turned into an FPS yet? I mean they are both shooters, just different style of shooters. This is equivilent of the change happening in FF. Sure, they are both RPGs styles, but totally different feel of gameplay.

I became interested in the game because of the new battle mechanic. It suits an open-world game better.

For me the most defining part of FF is that it puts storytelling first. A final fantasy game tells a deep story dealing with philosophical dilemmas.

The gameplay is not that important since there are only a few enemies in the game who are really difficult. A final Fantasy game is not about making a hardcore difficult JRPG or about being able to spend 100s of hours exploring. Its about creating a world and telling you a story that should make you think about life. FF 13 was not different in that approach and I am sure that FF 15 will also tell an interesting story.

Lets be honest, most of the random enemies do not require any strategies to beat. With the exception of Boss Battles you can pretty much spam normal attacks and succeed. Most of the time you will not have to micromanage because you will probably never have a shortage of potions etc. And even the hardest enemies often can be beaten with a simply strategy. A FF game can be beaten by anybody who puts a little effort into it.

There are JRPGs out there who have brutally difficult boss fights, needs several hundred hours to be beaten and you have to know every detail of the battle systems to succeed... FF takes a different approach and puts its focus on storytelling... and thats why Square wants everyone to be able to see the ending sequence. The final story boss is never the hardest enemy in the game.

Somtimes people argue too much about graphics, gameplay, difficulty, etc... Some games simply put their focus on storytelling and I absolutely love these games. Heavy Rain, Assassin's Creed, Heavenly Sword.... there are so many games that get bashed for gameplay or difficulty reasons because some people simply can't see that the most important factor in game design was storytelling.

Storytelling is something that is not valued very much by many. There are even games that sends you through randomly generated dungeons in search for randomly generated loot in a gamewolrd that offers a generic mainquest and is centered around hundreds of meaningless sidequests for a character that you created yourself that has no real impact in the story... I am really happy that there are games like FF who take linear storytelling very important and who offer a great gaming experience.

Bravely default was an example of a battle system that people enjoyed.  Bravely default had a whole load of other issues that made it a terrible game, it is actually one of the worst games I have ever played, but it did have a good battle system.   Also, it seems like the farther they get away from their roots, the worse the game sells.  Just look at how the action games in the franchise have performed...

Apart of a few "salty" individuals. Most people here are not discussing whether XV will be amazing or not. They are just sharing their ideas of what the game should or shouldn't be. Which is fine and I'm enjoying reading what people have in mind.

When you look at things from an objective stance. About 1% of the "criticism" actually qualify to be called criticism. The 99% of things said either not well-founded, narrow opnions. Or general words with no depth or any foundation to be discussed reasonably.

The original games (1-CV) were atmospheric, story based, puzzle games with guns thrown in to help sell said story. Guns were a complete after though because unless you were playing on super easy mode, you never had enough ammo to have them make a difference. There were times when you would end up having to dodge zombies for hours simply because you ran out bullets and couldn't find anymore.

The newer games were straight up Gears of War. Totally different. I wouldn't say the original game was a shooter.

I'm not saying turn based isn't repetitive itself. I'm saying action based, button mashing, hack n slash are boring to me. Repetition itself isn't neccessarliy boring. I'm a numbers guy, methodical, I like the tension that turns provide. Like board games or card games. Granted engaging in consecutive random battle with a weakling that you know you you can just attack, attack, attack, win is annoying but I still find plenty of strategy in turn based combat. Strategy that stems from character customization and choice with a strong sense of progression both in and out of battle.

There are a lot of boring turn based games out there too. FF XIII was turn based but it was designed so the battles felt more like a dance, switching stances and holding attack. That's why games like God of War are a grind to me, while Demon Soul's was so great. I loved Dragon Age's combat but hated Dragon Age 2's more action approach.

So that makes Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter classic Breath of Fire? Great game, it was trashed by journalists and the massive amount of sheep that followed their reviews just for being a different style game. Sad when something like Final Fantasy will receive endless amounts of praise regardless of quality once it's released, as FF13 did, but any other RPG series doesn't get the same luxury.

Most of the RPG fans of the past are the reason for the downfall of the genre. If you didn't stick to a single popular franchise there might actually be some other great long running series.